A Muslim retort

Once in a while, someone from Skypeland I have described in this blog will chastise me for getting something wrong, or because they disagree with what I have written. If this response is sufficiently interesting, I will move the comment to a main blog article and address their statements in detail. The following is a comment posted in response to my blog article titled "Muslims know more".

Hi this is the Egyptian man you are talking about, I'm afraid that you added some lays to our conversation. (What the heck does that mean?)

1- I didn't said that suni & shia following hadith the same way, I said they are following the Quran the same way and there is only one version of Quran. occur shia ignores some suni hadith and vise versa and even some suni ignore some hadith accepted by some other suni, "Hadith is not protected, but Quran is sure protected form God and this is a debate since 1400 years and for ever" (Well either I did not understand this man correctly, which is easy to do given the vagaries of Skype and the accent and language barriers, or he is now presenting different information. But thanks for the correction. However, as noted in the article above, I already knew that. At least now it is clear he agrees. This did not seem to be true when we were conversing, or more correctly, this Egyptian man was lecturing me.)

2- I said drawing prophet Mohamed is not an issue for the Muslim, Muslims don't care about the prophet picture as much they care about his acts and orders, if Muslims seen his picture this will not increase their believe in him. (I am positive I did not misunderstand his statements in this instance. He was very clear and very insistent in stating that it was impossible that any Muslim had ever drawn Mohammed, or had ever been permitted to draw Mohammed. However, I guess it is a bit difficult to maintain that in the face of evidence to the contrary.)

3- regarding "the mind reading using the latest US technologies" it is a joke, if you are close to the Arabic culture you will understand what I mean. You are always saying with our technologies we can do everything, so why you didn't stop this kids from driving airplanes to the WTC. (I have heard many Arabs tell me "jokes" about how they want to kill me or kill all Americans. Well maybe I do not quite get the punchline...)

4- of course you ignored our conversation about the democracy in America. (I did not ignore it but it is not easy to type everything someone else says when they are talking, as they are speaking, or to remember it all perfectly later. Also, I have to make editorial decisions about what is interesting enough to warrant space in the blog.) When I said that America has a full history of democracy starting from:
(Again, this man demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of what democracy is, and the history of democracy in the USA as I described in my article "What is democracy?". None of the points he lists below have ANYTHING to do with democracy.).

A- Killing all the Indian existed in America. (As I said to this man when I was talking to him, this is wrong. All indigenous peoples were not killed in the USA; in fact, they are still 0.5% of the population, and probably many more in the US have aboriginal ancestry but do not self-identify as autochthonous for a variety of reasons. Many were killed by disease. Others were killed in wars with the Spanish and the French and others long before the US was a country. I think the US has not always been fair to indigenous peoples in the past, but it is more than fair now, and is compensating for past injustices. I would be glad to compare the current US treatment of minorities to Saudi Arabia's current treatment of minorities or Egypt's current treatment of minorities.)

B- Bringing slaves from Africa for a continues 200 years (Most of this was done before the US was a country. The largest slave trader in the world was a Muslim country, Oman, and this continued unabated for centuries. Many Muslim countries still are involved in slave trading, which is permitted according to the Koran, by my understanding. The US fought a grisly bloody civil war in which more than 600,000 people, out of a population of about 31.2 million, died to free the slaves. The US also had a civil rights movement which resulted in more equal treatment for minorities. With Affirmative Action and many other programs, the US has tried to make recompense for this injustice which ended long before anyone alive was born; over 140 years ago. Saudi Arabia's population consisted of 20% slaves in the 1950s and Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1962. I tried to interrupt this man to explain the history of slavery in the US when we were talking, but he was so angry and in such a fury I could not.)

C- Killing 80.000 civilian in Hiroshima and 70.000 in Nagasaki in Japan "notice that America the only country used the nuclear bomb in the world" (The atomic bombs were used to end World War II which killed over 62 million on both sides. It was estimated that without the surrender of Japan caused by the use of the atomic bombs, the invasion of Japan would have cost another 1 or 2 million additional lives. Japan itself had an atomic bomb project and would have had an atomic bomb prepared in a few weeks to use against the US if the US had not attacked first, according to recently declassified information. Since the detonation of these two atomic bombs, the US has worked through various international groups, used treaties to try to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and has pushed to destroy the current stockpiles of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Islamic countries like Iran, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan have been frantic to acquire nuclear weapons and increase the danger of nuclear war. Pakistan's main nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Kahn was even peddling nuclear weapons technology to rogue states and terrorists and anyone who would pay. Kahn was not even punished for his illegal activities. In addition, Iran has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to annihilate a neighboring sovereign country and kill all members of a race, violating international genocide laws. )

D- The Korean war (The United Nations, including many Muslim and Arab countries, acted to stop North Korea from overwhelming South Korea, and the United States was part of that. Muslim countries Ethiopia and Turkey both sent troops. If they had not, South Korea would not be enjoying the prosperity it now enjoys under an American umbrella of protection. Instead, South Koreans would be living in privation and starvation under the North Korean dictatorship.)

E- The Vietnam ware (This war was used to stop the spread of communism, and it was effective in this regard. However, I would not have suggested the US get involved, but sometimes mistakes are made. The US also acted to stop Serbia from killing its Muslim neighbors in Bosnia and Kosovo, and you didn't mention those, I notice. You also didn't mention the Battle for Mogadishu in Somalia to stop the Muslim warlord from keeping United Nations and Red Cross/Red Crescent food aid from reaching the millions of starving Muslims. Where was Egypt and Saudi Arabia in these fights to help Muslims? Or any other Muslim country? Saudi Arabia eventually reluctantly provided money to help Bosnia, but only after it was pushed extremely hard to show some generosity and give aid.)

F- Afghanistan (The US helped the Muslim Mujaheddin drive out the Soviet Army, who killed over 1 million civilians in Afghanistan and displaced over 5.5 million refugees in the course of a 9 year occupation of Afghanistan. The US is currently helping the democratically-chosen Muslim government in Afghanistan together with 36 other countries in the International Security Assistance Force to combat the Taliban and restore order to the country).

G- Iraq "AboGrip Prison" (I think this man is referring to the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal. The people who were caught performing these atrocities were sent to prison for many years. However, there was no torture by American troops of the prisoners in the Abu Ghraid Prison. The prisoners were embarrassed and experienced discomfort, being photographed naked. These kinds of treatments are similar to what would happen to someone trying to enter a college fraternity in the United States. Unlike what is found in many Muslim countries, there was no drilling into the brains of prisoners with electric drills, application of electric shocks to the prisoner's testicles, burning of the prisoners with clothes irons etc. The inmates of the Guantanamo Bay Prison have not been subjected to physical torture either, as they would have been in Muslim countries. Most Iraqis I have talked to are glad that Sadam was removed from power and tried by the Iraqi court. Millions of Iraqis have voted 3 times for their new democratic government in democratic elections. The US is training Iraqi forces to handle their own security and will leave as soon as they are able to. The current Muslim Iraqi government has asked the US to stay until this is possible.)

H- Supporting Israel against the Palestinians and Lebanon's. (The US has tried to broker a peace agreement between Palestine and Israel for decades, providing huge amounts of money to both sides. The US got a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and pays Egypt billions of dollars per year to keep Egypt from attacking Israel).

It is a full history of publishing democracy with force. (Unfortunately, this person has a very biased and even poor understanding of history, current events and his own culture. However, I was unable to correct these misunderstandings when I spoke to him since he was frantic to scream over me and unwilling to listen, in some sort of hate-filled "religious" fervor. Hmm...religion of peace, right?) I'm very sad that you changed our conversation to meet your targets. (I did not change it but reported it to the best of my abilities. I am glad he responded so I could attempt to give my side of the story, since he did not want to hear anything or learn when we were speaking. Instead, he just wanted to spew propaganda and nonsense and preach at me.) See You. (As I told this man before, I would be glad to talk to him again and next time, bring a few friends with me.)

Addendum: I have now read a term paper from a student at William and Mary College about the differences between the Shia and Sunni in their use of the hadiths, including a reference. The student notes, "While Sunni and Shii Muslims have their own hadith collections—their respective collections reflecting their respective beliefs—some overlap exists." As a reference for this statement, the student gives "Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 183.":
http://www.wm.edu/so/monitor/spring2001/paper2.htm#_edn5